A new report from Just Equations, a non-profit organization that seeks to re-envision mathematics to ensure greater educational equity, offers a playbook for redesigning college math pathways which have been a distinct source of inequity. “Solving for Equity: Design and Implementation of New Postsecondary Math Pathways” examines how math courses have often served as a gatekeeper to academic admission and academic majors for traditionally marginalized students, particularly Black and Latinx students.
The report includes a review of relevant literature and vital information gleaned from a distinguished group of scholars with expertise in math education. With that, Just Equations’ research team built strategies to increase equity and access that they hope will lead to academic success for students often stymied as they progress through education.
“Math has an important role as a gatekeeper that makes racial equity and gender equity in access to credentials that have labor market value even worse,” said Dr. Mina Dadgar, executive director of Education Equity Solutions and the lead author of the report. “It does not have to be this way. Mathematics education can be very helpful in helping students with the relevant critical thinking skills that they need to support them in different careers.
“If colleges and states work on defining rigor and relevance for mathematics, then mathematics education can be engaging and rich and relevant to what students want to study,” she added.
Remedial prerequisites, such as intermediate algebra, often discourage students from pursuing postsecondary degrees and credentials because these courses pose barriers to access. The report suggests replacing prerequisite remedial courses with corequisite courses and other types of embedded support.
“We have conceived of mathematics to be this very objective, neutral domain, and so we rely on those values of objectivity and neutrality to shape ideas around student ability,” said Dr. Luis Leyva, an assistant professor of mathematics education in the Peabody College of Education & Human Development at Vanderbilt University, who was one of the experts interviewed for the report.
What isn’t being considered, said Leyva, is how broader, sociopolitical structures disenfranchise students from racially minoritized backgrounds and other minoritized forms of social difference.
